Judges raise drug issue

In his recent book, The Quest for Justice, retired ACT Supreme Court judge Ken Crispin called for the possession of illicit drugs for personal use to be decriminalised.

Yesterday, Queensland’s Chief Justice,
Paul de Jersey
, did not go quite as far, but he said “continuous vigilance" over drug importation and dealing should be accompanied by “creative solutions" regarding their use. A visit to Zurich a decade ago opened his eyes to the benefits of the government supplying heroin to addicts in injecting rooms, de Jersey said.

“I saw this Swiss initiative as involving an enlightened and unprejudiced response to a remarkably difficult social problem for that country," he told the 12th International Criminal Law Congress in Noosa. “Whether it would effectively translate to ours is a separate question."

But it is a question that should be asked. Crispin showed that countries with the “toughest" laws and attitudes to drugs tended to have the highest rates of illegal use.

Chief Justice de Jersey pointed to Portugal, which abolished criminal penalties for drug possession for personal use in 2001 while continuing to prosecute trafficking. There, in the five years after decriminalisation, drug use was below the European Union average and for almost every narcotic the lifetime prevalence rates are far lower in Portugal than in Europe generally. Drug-related deaths and new HIV infections are also down.

But perhaps fearful they will look soft on “crime", Australia’s politicians are regrettably unwilling to have the debate.

It was the deal that was so big – or so covert – it even had its own code name at Atanaskovic Hartnell: “Project Black". This was the internal classification given to the tax and commercial affairs of alleged money launderer Michael Milne.

Anne Harley, a retired partner of the firm, was Milne’s trusted legal adviser and after his jury trial began in the NSW Supreme Court on Monday, she found herself in the box on Wednesday. Milne is facing two charges: dealing with the proceeds of crime worth more than $1 million, and dishonestly obtaining an advantage by lodging false financial statements and tax returns. He has pleaded not guilty to both.

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Harley was a solicitor for 20 years and was admitted in 1987 and worked at a specialist tax firm before joining Anderson Legal, Minter Ellison, then Atanaskovic Hartnell, from which she retired in 2006. Milne followed her to each firm.

Milne’s defence counsel, Lionel Robberds, QC, went to great pains in court on Wednesday to show Milne was getting good legal advice. Minter Ellison was a “highly regarded firm of solicitors", he told the jury, and both partners of Atanaskovic Hartnell – John Atanaskovic and Tony Hartnell – were “highly regarded men".

Harley ceased her employment with Atanaskovic Hartnell within a year or so of Milne’s arrest.

The effect of budget cuts at the Australian Law Reform Commission and National Native Title Tribunal look like small bikkies compared to the dramatic cuts made this week to the UK budget by Chancellor of the Exchequer,
George Osborne
. The UK Justice Ministry will be a big loser, with 14,000 of its 75,000 jobs to go, including 20 per cent cuts in frontline prison, probation and court staff, The Guardian reported. A cut of 3000 court staff is a product of the government’s plans to close 153 magistrates and county courts. Legal aid was also savaged, with whole areas of civil law, including housing, family and possibly immigration and asylum disputes, taken out of the scheme.

Following a meeting with his South Australian counterpart John Rau, NSW Attorney-General
John “Hatman" Hatzistergos
says he is more confident that reforms to the national legal profession are on track. Some concerns are still being ironed out, including well-traversed ones about the composition of the proposed national legal services board, but Hatman tells Hearsay “these will not be insurmountable; we are trying to get them sorted out as soon as we can."

The only spanner in the works is Western Australia, which sent a parliamentary secretary to the Adelaide meeting.

Hatman said it would be unfortunate if WA was not part of the reforms, because of all the jurisdictions, they had a significant amount to gain from the reforms. But he said he and his counterparts would not be waiting around.

“There is an emerging consensus among the other jurisdictions," he said.